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Thursday, August 30, 2007

GOSS FAMILY LETTERS - NEW HAMPSHIRE 1831

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1831-1846 Goss Family Letters - New Hampshire

Nice lot of 1831-1846 handwritten letters, mostly sent to Roxanna Goss of Gilford, Strafford County, New Hampshire from family members and friends. All but one with personl content. (15) pieces total -- (13) letters and two notes. Some with address covers -- four postally sent, including 1831 cover with manuscript Gilford Village N.H., Aug. 9. [See scan and info on Daniel Goss letter below.]

The writers include: Louisa C. Bickford, Alton; Abigail R. Hatch, Gilford; Joshua Goss; Elizabeth T. Hadley, West Camton [?]; J. M. Sargent, Danvers; Polly Berry, Strafford. An 1831 letter from her distraught brother, Daniel Goss, contains the sad news that his wife just died leaving four small children, including one that needs to go to a wet nurse.

Particularly enjoyable letters are the four, plus one note, 1840-41, from cousin Mary Ann Goss of Portsmouth, NH. In an 1840 letter she writes that she recently travelled from Alton to Portsmouth and drove every step of the way by herself, "and no accident occured."

c. Jan. 1841 note - "I have just been over and got your Wig. It is certainly a beauty...Oh how I wish I could run up and see how you look. Roxy you are a Whig now most assuredly. There is no mistake. Hurra for Old Tip. General Harrison must and will be elected."

Reformed Drunkards

Aug. 28, 1841, 2pp., quarto - "Oh! cousin Roxy the temperance cause goes ahead in this town, and indeed, all throughout the different states - Probably you have heard of the Washington Reformed Drunkards Society which was first formed in Baltimore. It consists chiefly of men who have been poor, degraded, drunkards, and have reformed and become sober, respectable men...their wives are no longer mortified with the disgraceful sight of their husbands reeling to and fro across the streets nor their children ashamed nor afraid to see their father come home."; "I wish you could hear them lecture. They expose any one no matter whether it is Lawyer, Doctor, Deacon, or Minister, who has any thing to do with Alcohol either in shape of Rum, Gin, Brandy or Whiskey Wine or Sherry - or whatever. The take the poor drunkard by the hand, raise him from the mud and dirt, take him to a room prepared for the purpose, have him cleaned, if he wants clothes give them to him...they then after he is perfectly sober persuade him to sign the pledge and send him to his family an altered man."